


Long Periods of Horrible Sanity

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Depression, Gen, Self-Harm, attempted suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-13
Updated: 2012-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-31 03:13:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/339245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: During the times between fixes, his mind was so logical and sharp that it hurt. It was during those times - those terrible times when everything made sense - that he wondered if the world might not be better off without one Charles Francis Xavier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lost

**Author's Note:**

> I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.
> 
> \- Edgar Allan Poe

Charles Xavier sometimes wondered if he was mad, and not really gifted at all.

It was all well and good convincing himself that the voices he heard, the things he knew, came from some sort of extraordinary power, but how likely was that? He was a man of science, and while there were those who thought that the possibility of humans developing into something more - of an accelerated evolution - was a very real possibility, almost a certainty, Charles did not count himself among them. He'd spent his entire adult life and most of his adolescent life studying genetics, unraveling those beautiful helices that are so full of mystery and knowledge. He knew better than to suppose that he would be lucky enough to have a legitimate reason for what he had, in recent years, reluctantly admitted to being madness.

He hated it. Hated that he could block out the voices, train himself as if it were all real, when he was slowly coming to realise that it must be some form of delusion. How could someone possibly hear the thoughts and ponderings of everyone around them?

As a child, he'd fantasized about meeting someone like him. Someone strange and gifted and different, like he was. It had never happened, of course, because the very idea of there being other people out there with something wrong with their minds, like what was wrong with his, and being let wander free and easy was laughable.

From the creeping doubt of fading hope had sprung a deep-seated depression, one that he couldn't work through on his own - and he'd be damned before he talked to a shrink about his problems. Instead, he'd buried himself in his studies, in his learning, in trying to ignore the aches and pains left from the years of systematic abuse at the hands of his mother's beloved second husband. It had worked, for a time, and when he'd come to Oxford he'd thought that maybe things were looking up.

Even his delusions were different here, he remembered thinking. Quieter, for the most part, and much more intelligent than they had been at all those wretched parties his mother had forced him to go to in Westchester. He twitched at the memory of those vapid, vacant, cruel, callous thoughts, and relaxed into the background hum of academia that never left him in this city.

Aside from that, he'd felt more like he belonged. He'd held himself apart as a child, and that had bled into his older relationships in the States. Here, though, he was popular. Still the prodigiously intelligent geek with the too-intense interest in genetics, but that seemed to be a good thing.

He'd wondered if maybe he could settle here, be safe here- And then he'd gone to that club. That horrible, dark place where everyone had been too interested in the strangely pretty young American with the striking eyes and an accent more English than their own-

He shuddered at that memory. At the memory of what had come after, of how word had spread and he'd been cut off again, of how he'd been forced into burying himself once more in his studies...

He'd found a haven then. A temporary release, a means of escaping the horrifying confines of his own mind.

A _fix_.

And so what if some of his peers disapproved? He didn't care. All that mattered was that that needle slipping under his skin, bringing delicious liquid heat and freedom and quiet. He'd perfected the art of shooting up so that it took minimal time and effort. A tourniquet he'd appropriated from one of the health sciences labs, the syringe he sterilised after every use and his stash of little glass bottles, all waiting for him in the deep, hidden compartment in the arm of his chair. The chair was one of the few things he'd brought from Westchester, taking it from his father's study. The hidden compartment had once housed secret legal papers and then, later, bottles of whiskey, but now it hid Charles' fix and that was all he needed.

Tonight was different. Tonight, he'd watched the news for the first time in months. He'd seen the strange stories from Cuba, and he'd felt dizzy at the implications. It had been weeks since then, apparently, but he didn't care about that. He cared about only one thing.

He wasn't alone.

He'd spent all this time alone, and yet...

And yet...

Rather than hope, this realisation brought only despair. During the times between fixes, his mind was so logical and sharp that it hurt. During this time, tonight, he'd considered everything. If he really was one of those people in Cuba - a mutant - then surely they would have found him? If his madness was actually an ability, then it could be considered akin to the telepathy he'd read about in the science fiction novels of his teenage years. Surely that would be useful? Surely...

But no. He was still here, still alone.

So tonight, the dose was more concentrated than usual, administered earlier than usual. He sat at his desk, because that was where he'd always felt most at home, and he wore the kind of clothes he wore to lectures every day. Tweed and soft wool and well-worn leather, all lightly scented with old paper and late nights and something that might have been fear.

He watched closely as the needle slid home, as the plunger depressed and the clear liquid rushed into his body.

Then he tidied up, deposited everything in the arm of his chair, leaned back and closed his eyes.

_Peace._


	2. Found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.  
> \- Edgar Allan Poe

Emma clung to Erik's arm suddenly, and by the glassy stare of her eyes he knew she was on the verge of switching forms, so intensely was she focused.

Her jaw dropped.

"He's trying to kill himself!"

As one, the team broke into a sprint - Erik led the field by a long shot, thanks to his height advantage giving him the extra leg-length, and was already unlocking the door when he was ten yards away. Why hadn't they brought Azazel with them? He could have had this idiot young telepath out of his room already, in the hospital-

Oh, God, he was so  _young._ Erik catalogued everything about the man slumped in the expensive leather chair - the erratic pulse, the shallow breathing, the clammy, slightly greying skin - blue around the lips - the quivering eyelids, the twitching extremities.

And the deep, viciously red track marks on the inner elbow. The man had been using for quite some time, it would seem.

"He's overdosed," Erik bit out when the others appeared at the door. Ignoring everything that was polite and proper, he gathered the smaller man into his arms with a grunt and lifted him bodily from his chair. "Search the room, find his stash and burn it. Burn everything that's with it, too. Emma, tell Joshua we need him to be ready as soon as possible - and tell Azazel to come in out of the car so we can get to Joshua quicker."

Emma set to it as Erik laid the telepath - Charles, Emma had said - out on the narrow bed on the other side of the room, the better to assess his symptoms.

"The poor thing," Emma said, uncharacteristically sympathetic as she rested a hand on Charles' forehead. "He thought he was alone. It happens to so many."

Erik snorted derisively, having no sympathy for someone who was weak enough to consider suicide just because of their powers - he had thought himself alone, had suffered grossly for his powers and for his race, but he was the stronger for it. Telepathy couldn't be so much of a burden that it would break a man - Emma was a telepath, after all, and she was probably the most powerful woman Erik knew.

Azazel appeared with a quiet  _bamf_ and quickly took in the situation. He nodded once to Erik, who gripped the telepath's shoulder tightly and waited impatiently for-

They were at the hospital before he could blink - the abandoned hospital they had set up base in while recruiting here in England. It had been built directly after the Second World War and since had been deemed surplus to requirements. Erik was thankful, because it was the practical sort of building that allowed them a measure of comfort even while hiding.

Joshua, nicknamed by Raven as "Elixir," was waiting.

"Ah, hell, Erik," he breathed, horrified. "What did the poor bastard do to himself?"

Erik grimaced, set down the telepath and stood back.

"He gave up."

 

* * *

Charles woke up, gasping for breath and feeling more invigorated than he could ever remember being before in his entire life. There was a warmth and a strength in his arms and legs that he hadn't felt before, a feeling that he could run and run and run and never tire. He felt so  _alive, so bright and aware and-_

And he seemed to be in a private room in an old hospital. It was cool and dry, and there was a fire burning in the grate on the far side of the room. As far as he was aware, open fires weren't allowed in hospital wards, and hadn't been for years. So, not a private room - a nurses' station, perhaps, or a staff common room.

His bed was narrow and the mattress thin, but it was no worse than his bed back at the college-

Oh, God. College. The drugs.

He'd tried to kill himself. Right. He knew that much.

Did that mean that this was... Not Heaven, because suicide was a mortal sin, but perhaps Purgatory? It didn't seem violent enough (or hot enough) to be Hell.

And someone had changed him into a pair of pyjamas that were enormously too big. He felt small and frail in them, even with the strange power humming through his muscles.

He sat up slowly, taking in his surroundings more carefully.

Right. There was something about the room that, despite how clean it was, spoke of disuse. He couldn't quite put his finger on it - he just  _knew._

Which probably meant he wouldn't be shooting up while here. No chance to snag supplies if the place wasn't in use.

And if it wasn't in use, what on earth was he doing here? Who had found him in his room? He'd made sure to lock the door, hadn't told anyone where he was going to be - the usual places were the library, or in one of the reading rooms - so who had found him? Who would be bothered to come looking for him?

He stood up off the bed, waiting for the slight dizziness to pass, and realised that there was a pair of slippers waiting for him, along with a robe that looked as big as the pyjamas. He shrugged, pulled it on, belted it closed, walked over to the door.

It wasn't locked.

He slipped out onto the empty corridor beyond, the hair standing up on the back of his neck. Not only were there no audible voices, but his delusions were silent. Never before in his life had they been quiet like this - it was such a  _relief._

He ignored the tingle of loneliness that pricked at his mind and walked resolutely towards the nearest light source, at the end of the corridor on the right. It was the pale yellow-white light of flourescent tubes, bright and stark and harsh. He'd always preferred lamplight, or even candlelight, but he just wanted to know what the hell was going on.

The door was open just a crack, and he peered in to see-

It seemed to be a dormitory, much like the one he'd stayed in at boarding school. A longish room, with two rows of metal-framed beds and small nightstands. More of the beds were occupied than he'd imagined, what with the eerie double silence.

There were women on one side, men on the other. Two women, one glowingly pale, with fair hair and creamy skin, the other hidden in shadow - although it looked as though her hair was dark red. They slept at the very far end of the dorm- the ward, he supposed it must be, far from the men who slept at the end nearest the door, in the light.

The bed in the corner, just inside the door, was occupied by a tall, lean man with short hair and a severe face. Where his bare arm rested on top of the covers, Charles could see something written on the inside of his forearm. Numbers, in blue ink.

_A serial number_ he realised in horror _. _A survivor of the camps. My God.__

The next man seemed very young, with untidy red hair, and he snored magnificently in his sleep. Beside him was a scrawny, sallow-skinned teenager with mousy hair.

Should he wake some of them? What was the right thing to do? They'd probably stopped him from killing himself, but  _who were they?_

"We were at Cuba, Dr. Xavier."

He jumped, startled, and saw that the blonde woman was awake, sitting up, rising to greet him. She smiled slightly, slipped her feet into the dainty white slippers that sat on the floor beside her bed, and stood up.

"My name is Emma Frost," she said, gently guiding him out of the room and closing the door behind them. "Come on, we need to talk."

Charles, though, was fixated on one word.

"Cuba?"

 

* * *

Her grip on his elbow was hard, and he found himself helpless to resist as she propelled him along the corridor and down the stairs. He wondered what he'd been given to halt his delusions, and how even these people had known about them-

"They're not delusions, Dr. Xavier," she said impatiently. "You're telepathic. You just don't know how to handle it, that's all. Downstairs so we can talk."

"How did you-"

"I'm telepathic too. Not as powerful as you, maybe, and my telepathy is different to yours, but we're more alike than anyone else here. Now, down the stairs."

A  _telepath._ He'd considered the possibility, of course, before he'd resigned himself to being mad, but... But to have it confirmed? To have someone else say it aloud? To... To...

"I find it amazing that you never met any others," Emma said sharply, directing him through another door. There was a fire in this room, warm and inviting, and there was food, too - sandwiches. Cheese and ham, if Charles was smelling them right. "There are enough of us, and you've lived in some of the most densely populated areas of the world-"

"Sorry, but... Us? I'm not sure I follow."

She scowled.

"You know, for a certified genius, you're a maudlin idiot."

"Fine line between genius and madness, love," he sniped reflexively, and then flushed. "I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"No, no, a little spirit is better than moping quietly in the background. You'll need that spirit if you're to survive with us," she laughed, settling herself down in one of the chairs by the fire. "Now sit. Eat. Ask your questions - it's impolite to communicate with your mind unless necessary."

"Oh. Right. Um."

He sat down and lifted a sandwich. Five sandwiches later, he was ready to start asking questions.

"You said Cuba. The news said that there were... Mutants? Is that the term?"

"Yes."

"And you say  _I'm_ one?"

"Everyone here is," she said flatly. "And until you're back on your feet, you won't be seeing anyone who isn't."

Back on his feet. Interesting. They intended to keep him around, then?

"What did I say about communicating with your mind?" Emma chastised, a frown forming once more. "I'm serious - you can't speak with your mind all the time. Not only is it rude, it could also result in you getting caught."

"Caught?"

"Government's not too hot on mutants right now," she sad, blasé as she picked at her nails. "Now, do you want to stay with us, learn how to deal with your telepathy and actually do something useful, or do you want to go back to your pathetic little drug-filled hell of a life?"

 

* * *

As the months passed, Charles came to know those who were now his peers.

Alex and his lasers.

Sean and his scream.

Raven and her changing.

Angel and her wings.

Joshua and his healing hands.

Hank and his... Everything.

And Erik. Erik, who quietly, contemptuously loathed Charles with everything in his being, from the slight curl of his upper lip to the dismissive spin on his heel whenever the younger man walked into a room.

Emma was the closest thing he had to a friend here, he supposed, and that only because he had more common ground with her than any of the others. After all, they were a group of American teenagers, a mildly psychotic German Jew and a mildly sociopathic upper-middle class New Yorker. Of course he, an Oxford-educated upper-class English-American with more money (probably) than the rest of them combined, would have more in common with her than with any of the others.

The mindset needed to be succeed at Oxford was, he'd always thought, a mild for of sociopathy.

Erik probably had an illicit stash of Nazi gold hidden away somewhere, and was probably somehow sociopathic along with the psychopathy, but that didn't bear thinking about.

So, Emma was the closest thing he had to a contemporary. She was clever and oddly witty, as well as a  _social_ peer in that she understood the social queues he was used to, while the others were often left at a loss.

The young people - he refused to call them children, because they  _weren't -_ never seemed to know quite what to do with him. They seemed to see Erik's contempt and interpreted it as a realistic gauge of Charles' weakness.

Because no matter how much stronger his shields were now, after the time spent strengthening them under Emma's careful tutelage, he could still hear all the surface thoughts. He could still hear that they thought him weak for breaking under the pressure of his burden - they, after all, were younger and less intelligent than him. Surely he should have been able to bear up and carry on?

 

* * *

Erik in particular thought him pathetic. How could he not, when he had survived the horror of the camps? Especially those particular horrors set aside for those inmates who were not only Jewish but also were  _different,_ those special tortures administered at the hands of evil men who hid behind white coats and the title of __Herr Doktor.__

As a doctor, a man of science, it made Charles sick. What those bastards had been doing to those children had nothing to do with the betterment of humanity, and that was all science should be used for - the pursuit of knowledge and the improvement of life. They were sadists, as evidenced by the raw, painful memories Erik accessed every time he used his powers - and that was before he even began to consider the  _human_ side of himself and how much he pitied Erik for what he'd seen and experienced.

That didn't mean Charles had had an easy life. Easy in comparison, perhaps, but to have legion voices living inside your head, never knowing for certain which thoughts were your own and which belonged to the clever boy at the other side of the lab. Charles had spent his entire life desperately trying to sift through the dross of nonsense that floated on the surface of every mind he encountered just to keep track of his own thoughts, of his  _sanity._ He was doing well to be as good as he was - and he knew he wasn't much. Jumpy, prone to agonising headaches whenever any of the others were particularly angry or upset or in pain, introverted, _dreadful_ at conversation with anyone besides Emma (and, looking into the minds of the others, he saw that his and Emma's conversations were comedic in how disjointed and half-spoken they were). He knew that everyone knew about his dabbling in drugs, knew that they were aware of his suicide attempt, knew that they knew everything about him while he knew next to nothing about them.

It infuriated him that they had formed such a low opinion of him based almost entirely on Erik's impressions. He resented that they'd take the word of a murderer over that of a teacher, like himself.

 

* * *

The one  _good_ thing he'd been able to do was to provide them with a safe haven. He'd maintained his family home outside New York and had offered it to them as a base. It was more comfortable than the rounds of temporary accommodation Erik had so far scrounged up, and Emma's pleasure was so intense that she projected it to everyone else in their not-so-merry little troupe of vagabonds as a morale booster. The prospect of guaranteed heat, plumbing and electricity seemed to delight all of them, and he'd been only too happy to provide something other than a figure of distrust.

He wasn't ashamed to admit that the shock on Erik's face when they'd arrived at the house had sent a jolt of smug satisfaction through him - he'd seen that Erik had convinced himself that material possessions meant little, but no one could remain unaffected by the sheer grandeur of the house.

It wasn't until someone was sent to get them that Charles earned a measure of respect.

Well,  _get them_ was putting it mildly. The CIA had decided that they were too big a risk, especially after the near-miss with the missiles at Cuba, and so they had to be exterminated - it was that simple.

Charles had sensed the men coming long before Emma, which seemed to please her. His range had expanded greatly since he'd met her, and now it was just a case of waking Azazel and having him teleport each of the others to the safe house Charles and Emma had decided on (without consulting Erik) several weeks ago.

They still saw him as the junkie-coward who thought he was as clever as Hank, but Charles had dealt with much uglier labels and was resigned to living with this one for the foreseeable future. Azazel disliked him almost as much as Erik did, but the flat orders he'd given had brooked no challenge - when Azazel had tried, Charles had dived into his peculiar mind and  _made_ him teleport away with Raven, because she was closest.

After that, there had been no challenges.

Emma alone remained behind with him, despite Erik's vehement protests. She was the only one who could be of any real use for Charles' plan, after all, and so they set to work.

Calmly, methodically, Emma watched the minds of the group as a whole while Charles reached deep into their individual minds and turned them on each other. There was a brief rain of bullets on the front lawn, and then it was over.

Emma seemed tired by the effort of extending her mind for so long, but Charles had never felt more alive or more sick. The thrill of using his power was more powerful than any drug he'd ever experimented with, but the knowledge that he'd just made twenty men kill each other was disgusting.

He sent out the mental call to Azazel, and was already emptying his stomach by the time he arrived back with a raging Erik.

 

* * *

After the incident, they all seemed wary of Charles. It was a different wariness now, a wariness tempered by something like fear, and he hated it.

The only bright side was that they no longer seemed to think him useless. Now he could put his vast stores of knowledge into practice - a knack Hank seemed to be missing, somehow.

It had been Emma's idea to make use of Charles, Hank and herself as conventional teachers, to mould Charles' childhood home and sanctuary from the minds of millions into a sanctuary for all mutantkind - a school for the younger people, a haven for the rest. Hank and Emma explained to Charles the Cerebro machine Hank had built for the CIA, that Emma had used but that was more suited to Charles' brand of telepathy, that would help them find more mutants, more people in need of their help.

Charles ignored the ugly thoughts of building an army in Erik's head and pulled the helmet down, losing himself in the world.


End file.
